


Winter

by pomagranatepassion



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Melancholy, Saving a Life, car crash, hella swearing, how does he not know that black ice is a thing, i dont really know what else there is, jean is upset as always, marco is a horrible driver i mean really, winter blizzard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-09 11:21:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1145372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pomagranatepassion/pseuds/pomagranatepassion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Marco is a horrible driver, and Jean saves his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Crash

It had to be colder than hell out here.

Bad analogy. Everything was colder than hell.

But still. Fuck it was cold out, with the wind resembling Jean’s mood: angry, snappy, and bitter. The blizzard that had just blown through last night? Yeah, it didn’t improve his regards whatsoever. He was trudging through a foot of snow, just so he could do the shittiest shovel job he’d ever seen, so that maybe he’d make it to his job in time.  
Probably not, but didn’t some sadistic bastard out there say that it was the thought that counted? Either that or Armin, that scrawny kid who worked the bar had finally made an impression on Jean.

Either way, Jean was not happy. He tended to live his life in a sort of irritated feeling, but today was worse. He was more angry than usual, and he wasn’t sure there was anything out there that could help him quell whatever storm was brewing inside. He didn’t want to be like this, per say, but it was kind of just the way things happened.  
He grabbed his shovel and got to work. An hour later he wasn’t finished, but the end of the driveway might just be passable to drive on. Which was risky as… he didn’t really care, actually. Jumping into his beat up truck, Jean started the engine and left. There wasn’t a person in sight on the cold January day to witness the way his car fishtailed, and after he regained control, he didn’t bother sticking around. 

If he didn’t stop now he’d probably make it to his first job (some crappy thing pushing papers) with thirty minutes to spare. Counting on well plowed roads, that is.  
He lived on the outskirts of a small city near the mountains, so his drive to work usually included a commute over the highway. The runoff from the mountains that the highway was next to were dangerous in weather like this, and even Jean wasn’t reckless enough to drive above the speed limit.

Not that there were many cars on the high way anyways, he observed as he merged in. Maybe there were two, three? cars ahead of him, and only a handful behind him.   
Relaxing a bit, because the engine had finally warmed up enough to provide actual heat, he turned on the radio. A low pop song thrummed out of his speakers. No fucking way, I’m a grown man, I don’t listen to this shit. If a twenty two year old was really a grown man.

He switched it, and Mumford and Sons began playing. No, no, nothing’s on…  
A far ways off, he watched a car in the rightmost lane swerve. Jean’s hand stilled on the radio. Oh, god.

The car swerved again, and scraped the side railing. Jean’s jaw went slack as he watched, in the kind of horror that was most crippling—the act of seeing but not being able to help—and the car swerved again. It reached a curve in the road, a place where the highway bended away from the mountain. And Jean saw.

Water. Water on the road. But water in single digit weather wasn’t water, now was it? 

The car hit the black ice, and in a second everything went from bad to worse. The railing consisted of metal posts strung up with steel wire, nothing really meant to stop something, only slow it down. But this car wasn’t at the right angle, and it was going too fast, slip sliding all over. It wouldn’t be slowed down by a couple of wires. And it was clear the driver wouldn’t be able to regain control even if they happened to be a Nascar professional driver, the conditions simply that bad.

And Jean, ever irritable, grumpy, and regarded as unsympathetic by his coworkers, felt his heart plummet. Where the mountain and highway divided, there was a ravine. He couldn’t tell how deep, but dammit, he couldn’t tell from where he was how far down it went. The highway seemed to be more of a bridge on this particular curve than a road.  
In one fluid moment, the car crashed head first into the railing, and fell into the ravine. 

Jean felt his blood run cold. No way someone could survive that, no fucking way—

That passenger was going to die.  
Maybe already was dead. 

Jean had an irrational feeling that he’d seen people die before, and that he needed to keep his resolve but… he hadn’t. He didn’t want to see someone die. He wasn’t a praying man, but God, that driver there, they needed a prayer. They needed someone to help them.

He tore his eyes away from the gaping rip in the siding and let his car roll to a stop on the shoulder of the road. A million and one things flashed through his mind, death, life, help, and nothing seemed to stick. What was he supposed to do? He was Jean Kirstein, if that made a difference.   
It didn’t. He stared, wide eyed, at the cars that drove past him. 

Hadn’t they all witnessed that car crash down the side of the ravine?   
Did no one care?

Wasn’t anyone going to help?

Before he knew what he was doing, he’d already left his car, out into the chilled air and stumbled over to where the car had skidded off the road. He couldn’t seem much through the thick blanket of snow on the ridge, and the even thicker veil in the air, but he could see tire tracks. Miraculously, it seemed the car hadn’t gone air born.   
He stepped onto the side, his body tense, and paused. Priorities, first. 

Whipping out his cell phone, he dialed 911 and told them what had happened. 

“Okay, stay where you are, sir, help is on the way,” a woman told him over the phone.  
“But,” his voice cracked, “they’re going to die. I have to do something.” An ambulance would take at least fifteen minutes, speeding, and with the roads the way they were, it would take longer, he calculated. And he didn’t know how long a helicopter might take, but would they even want to use it in this weather? 

“Sir, we advise you to be careful. We don’t want two accidents to clean up.” Her voice was cold, and Jean felt her words as a shock to his system.   
Everyone else thinks they’re dead.  
Everyone but me.  
“Okay,” Jean replied and hung up the phone. He stuffed it into his pocket, put on his gloves, and started the climb down. The snow made it hard for him to take steps, and if he moved to fast he’d get caught up in a mini avalanche, but he trudged on. It felt like forever, getting to that dark car in the distance, but it could’ve been a mere matter of seconds. 

The first thing he noticed was the smoke. The car was steaming everywhere, and Jean had no idea where it was coming from, but everything was so hot, and he was so fucking glad there was a cold blizzard raging on that could halt any fires. Or at least, he hoped. 

The car looked beaten up, with the sides crumpled and windows smashed in. Its paint, which Jean could now see had been a rusty black color, left traces on the side of a tree nearby and the snow around it. The car, thank God, wasn’t twisted around a tree, but rather, looked like its movement had been slowed by skidding aside a tree. Sure, the right side looked nearly ripped off, the scattered remains of the entire car door lost somewhere in the snow, but maybe, just maybe. 

He approached the car, whose fall resembled a miracle landing the more he thought about it, holding his breath. But when he walked around to the driver’s seat, he saw the front and…

Jeans chocked, heaved, and relieved himself to the side. The windows. Glass everywhere. And so much blood. 

He ran as fast as he could over to the car and looked inside the cracked window. He couldn’t see much through the smoke, but he watched someone struggle to breath, suffocating by a large airbag. 

Which was all Jean needed to see to promptly grad the crumpled door, and rip it off, the adrenaline coursing through his veins making him sick, but powerful. The crumpled heap let out a resounding groan as he tried to force his way in to help the driver. 

He was a boy, maybe about Jean’s age, with black hair. His short, fast breaths made Jean anxious, and he moved the airbag away, but it looked like the guy was struggling with lucidity. Jean could tell that right side of his face had been cut badly by the jagged glass, and blood was everywhere. The crash had locked the right side of his body between the remains of the seat, and he looked strangely squished. 

A quick glance in the back told him there had only ever been a driver in the car… which was lucky, because it looked like the back of the car had turned into a death trap, sharp metal jutting out everywhere.  
Jean resisted throwing up again and felt around for the guy’s pulse.  
A faint thrum met him. 

He was still alive.

And when Jean found it, the world seemed to focus, everything intensifying. This guy was alive, but he might not be for long. It was up to Jean to save his life.  
Priorities reassigned, Jean began his task of saving someone else’s life, which seemed entirely too hypocritical, because Jean Kirstein didn’t really know what to do with his own life, let alone someone else’s.

“Hey, hey. You still there?”

The boy’s eyelids fluttered, but he looked too far gone to respond.   
“Hey, don’t do that. My name’s Jean. I’m gonna get you out of this, just uh, hold on.” He made an attempt to slide the guy out, but when he mustered up a whimper, Jean figured that probably wouldn’t be the best way to get him out. He’d already lost a lot of blood, and he didn’t need too much more pain to throw him over the edge.  
“Don’t, uh, worry. Where does it hurt?”

He got no response, which freaked him out more. This guy doesn’t have too much longer.  
Doing the only thing he could think of, Jean climbed onto the hood and tried free his caught side. It felt like wrestling a butterfly out of a spider’s web, something so fragile and utterly tangled up. When he felt the guy’s body begin to slip out, he, as delicately as he could, made sure the guy didn’t slump forward and collide with several shards of glass sticking out of the windshield. 

Jean climbed back around, fast as he could, and slid him out of the car, and onto the cold snow. That’s when Jean noticed exactly what had been the cause of all the blood in the car. 

A gash ran from the top right side of his collar bone to the bottom of his ribs. It had cut through the thick jacket the guy had been wearing, making a deep cut. Jean could only really hope it hadn’t hit any of his major organs. 

Unwrapping his scarf from around his neck, Jean tied it around the guy’s midsection and applied as much pressure as he could. Wasn’t that supposed to help? He couldn’t remember anything he’d learned in tenth grade bio, and he’d never taken a class in saving someone’s life because, you know, he hadn’t quite planned on doing something like this.

Even if he’d had a second to think, Jean still wouldn’t really know the best course of action. But he didn’t, and he could only surmise that the best thing to do was get the guy out of the snow and up to his car as fast as possible, so he carefully slung the guy onto his back, and set off.

The climb up the ride was difficult, but Jean had so much adrenaline pumping through him by then that he didn’t care. When they reached the curve, the car seemed a mile away. Jean was there in a second, placing the guy in the passenger seat and applying as much pressure as he thought would be helpful to the gaping wound in the guy’s body.

This black-haired, freckled guy been deadly quiet as they’d marched up the hill, and that scared the shit out of Jean. His pulse was there, faint as fuck, but still there, and Jean couldn’t focus with everything that was happening. 

“They’re going to be here in a sec, just, uh, wait. We got up here already, so don’t do something stupid,” Jean mumbled.  
The guy shifted and groaned.   
The next few minutes felt like a lifetime, but suddenly, he heard sirens and there—miraculously—was an ambulance. Jean waved his hands frantically and they pulled over, and with a whirlwind, they took the guy and left.  
……  
Jean drove. 

Simply put, that’s all he did. It was like he’d forgotten how to focus, only being able to drive, and drive, and keep going on. Moving forward.  
Of course he was going to the hospital. 

He wasn’t sure how to justify his motives, especially after the first responders on the scene had told him they were luck this time, but he was a civilian, and he shouldn’t do that without a professional. He could’ve really messed something up, they’d told him, and turned it into a horrendous legal situation, but Jean was unrepentant.  
It would’ve been worth it, even if there was only the smallest of chances he could’ve helped. But now he was intent on something entirely different, and he needed to know. Needed to know how that boy was doing. 

Marco, actually. His name was Marco, and Jean had found that out when the first responder had found his wallet. Which Jean should’ve thought about, so he could’ve actually tried to talk the guy into consciousness. Maybe it would’ve worked better than telling him about his childhood.

Which was terribly embarrassing and all a blur in his mind, but he’d needed Marco to stay with him, but he had no way of doing that except talking to him. So…  
If Marco was able to remember the crash (which was highly unlikely so maybe Jean was in the clear) he’d remember some crazy guy with tan and dark brown hair talking to him about the time in summer camp that Jean had snuck out of his cabin late to secretly use the zip line and ended up getting caught by his bunk mate Eren Jaeger. And then they’d went zip lining together two nights later only to be caught by the groundskeeper and promptly thrown out of camp. 

Jean shook his head, forcing the memories away. 

The shock hadn’t set in yet, because Jean was focused, but he knew once he stopped driving, he’d be a half step away from passing out himself.   
He hadn’t thought of what he’d say if he just arrived at the Trost district hospital but he didn’t think he could live with himself if he didn’t know what happened to Marco. So when he arrived at the hospital, not a thought in his head as he parked the car and walked in, he simply planted himself in a chair near the reception and waited. He felt eerily calm, his heart beat the only sound he seemed to hear. It was ages. And ages… and ages until he could sit back and relax.

No one had questioned him when he walked in, which seemed odd, but he wasn’t complaining. There were only two other people in the waiting room, an old couple who were holding each other in a tight embrace, the woman crying silent tears.

Jean swallowed forcefully and watched them closely. After a long, stretching minute, Jean’s muddled mind came to the consensus that they had to be Marco’s parents, what with their freckled fair skin and dark hair.   
…  
It was late, maybe, or early when Jean woke up. His eyes felt dry, his throat scratchy, and there were muffled sobs somewhere to his right. He hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep, his intentions to arrive late to work now thoroughly dashed, and he looked over his shoulder in the direction of the sobs. Marco’s parents were crying.  
But they were smiling. 

Jean heard some reassurance from the nurse that their son would be okay, and it felt like a weight lifted from his chest. He groggily stumbled his way over to the nearest trashcan, relieving himself of his shock in a physical way, and headed for the door.

Marco would be okay. Jean wasn’t needed any longer, and that was that.  
He stood in the cold outside the hospital doors for a moment to catch his breath. This little episode from hell was over and maybe Jean could being to think clearly again if he took a deep breath and relaxed. Whoever Marco Bott was, he was alive. And no, it wasn’t thanks to Jean, it was thanks to the well-educated doctors in the hospital who had fixed him, but… Jean closed his eyes. 

He’d done something amazing, hadn’t he? For once in his life, Jean had done something worthwhile. Maybe his contribution hadn’t helped the situation, but maybe it had. And that was enough for the grouchy boy who’d woken up late the night before from a haunting nightmare crying, wondering if he’d ever done something good in his life.

He stepped away from the hospital and on to the curb, intent on driving back home and sleeping until work the next day. A coffee didn’t sound like a good idea but he’d have to find something to wake him up before he drove for a half hour. 

“Wait!” Someone called out, startling him, and he played with the idea that maybe someone had been yelling after him. He turned around, only to see Marco’s mother exiting the hospital, eyes trained on him.

She approached Jean, her brows drawn tightly together. “Excuse me, I’d like to ask you a question.”  
The woman looked worn out, her hair pulled back in a messy fly away ponytail, her expression emotionally drained. Worry was etched in her wrinkles, and before Jean could stop himself, he had already nodded.

“I’m not sure why you were in the waiting room, but my son was in a car crash earlier today and the doctors told us a man named Jean Kirstein saved his life. Are you Jean Kirstein?”

Jean swallowed thickly, his throat still rough. “Um, yeah. But I didn’t save his life, I only helped a bit, I think—“

Her smile was entrancing, and she claimed the next minute of his life with gratitude, leaving Jean with his phone number in her pocket for her son, and a promise of a gift of gratitude from her son.   
...  
And that was how Jean met Marco.


	2. Coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean is a closet sweet tooth and that's the truth. He can't stand coffee but thinks drinking it will make him look cool! What a delusional boy. Meanwhile, Marco heals like superman and then they go out for coffee. Even though Jean hates it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt like writing so here you go! Also, I do what I want when it comes to format. So I hope it's not too weird? I just reeeally wanted to try out the one-sentence story writing (I haven't really seen it here but I assure you, it is a thing in other fandoms) so the beginning is like that and the end is regular story format. Hope you enjoy!

1\. Orphan   
It wasn’t like Jean cared when his job let him off, it was his seventh tardy and by far deserved because he’d been more than a few hours late, but he couldn’t help feeling a little orphaned. 

2\. Lively  
Jean wasn’t exactly the most lively person there was at job interviews, which probably explained the lack of callbacks, but his mind was occupied when they asked him if he was a hard worker, wondering about that silent boy from the wreck.

3\. Heavy  
He wasn’t depressed, just lacking his full motivation to do the things he was required to do, and no one could really blame him for that.

4\. Open  
By far, Jean wasn’t the most open guy—and if that led his new coworkers to dislike him, then he didn’t really care.

5\. Impulse  
It had been an impulse to arrive at the hospital, one last glimpse before he left that boy from the snow tucked away safely in his memory, and when the nurse informed him that visiting hours were over, he left.

6\. Cut  
It was cutting that Jean could never find a good cup of coffee—was it too difficult of a task for the universe to produce for him, a man who desperately needed something to remind he was from the world of the living?

7\. Scowl  
Sometimes, Jean scowled so much he forgot what it was like to smile.

8\. Hero  
He didn’t think of himself as a hero, and he knew nothing he would ever do could make him think of himself that way, but every now and then he wished the people he thought he was a hero would call him.

9\. Hush  
In the quiet of the night he woke, wondering if he had ever done anything worthwhile, and remembered, out there, there was someone who thought he had… and that was enough to lull him back into the hush of sleep.

10\. Plead  
There was a man at the bar who Jean had never seen before, but pleaded with him for a drink, and Jean gave him warm milk and reassuring words.

11\. Voice  
In the mornings Jean forgot what it was like to have a voice, and at night he wished he could forget that everyone else had a voice.

12\. Forward  
The time kept passing, and as the snow began to melt, the black ice receding on the streets, Jean thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to go forward with his life, past whatever had been holding him back.

13\. Compromise  
He’d made compromises with himself before, and this was not unlike the rest, because he didn’t want to see a broken, bloody face in the snow amidst his dreams, so he’d pretend that if he didn’t speak about it, it didn’t exist. 

14\. Believe  
There was a girl, short but deadly, who had transferred into his day job, and if he believed his coworkers rumors, she was a murderer.

15\. Morals  
His morals had been thrust upon him, so he wasn’t sure if he trusted them exactly, but nonetheless he’d been taught not to listen to rumors—later that day he ate lunch with Mikasa.

16\. Enjoy  
He enjoyed spending time with Mikasa, and at one point in his life he might’ve considered dating her, but something was different, or maybe more prominent now, and he just   
didn’t want to.

17\. Journey  
He wasn’t ashamed of himself, even though he was on a journey to find out who he really was.

18\. Fickle  
Family was a fickle thing to him, sometimes they loved him, sometimes they didn’t, and he wondered if maybe someone else’s family would adopt him instead.

19\. Melody  
Sometimes Jean heard something on the radio, a melody appealing to his heart, and he was a fucking grown man but who the hell cared—he sang along.

20\. Broken Wings  
Lately, he’d stopped wondering if his wings were broken, forgetting about his father’s prejudices and his mother’s betrayal, and instead, thinking that maybe, just maybe, they were strong enough to fly.

21\. Insanity  
Jean wondered if he was on the verge of insanity when he watched Eren Jaeger walk through the doors of the bar he worked at, Mikasa in tow.

22\. Clean  
Jean slowly cleaned a glass with a rag and watched Eren and Mikasa approach an even shorter man than Mikasa, without ever noticing he was there.

23\. Hidden  
He became the unnoticed bartender as he approached them, hidden by his job, and watched the three become completely absorbed in the tension that flowed in rivers between them.

24\. Final  
It was the final straw when Jean managed to figure out what had occurred with the group, what made the fierce sister-like woman, the determined brat and the older potty mouth rigid as fuck.

25\. Stranger  
Eren Jaeger (annoying Eren Jaeger from summer camp who’d yelled at Jean, saying he was gay because he was scared of a measly spider) was dating the stranger with the drawn expression, and Jean could see clearly from where he was standing, he was a guy.

26\. Last Laugh  
Who’s gay now, Jaeger?

27\. Bitter  
They were obviously happy together, Jean could see after Mikasa (who looked more shocked and irritated at not being told than anything) left the couple for the night, and Jean couldn’t help but feel like his old bitter self, wondering if he would find something like that soon.

28\. Wish  
Jean didn’t sit around and wish for something to happen, he found the problems all by himself, and Levi, his new super intendant (also consequently Eren’s boyfriend) had slapped Jean on his bad list after a shirt was stained brown with coffee. 

29\. Clear Skies  
Though Jean still dreamt of the darkness, he was starting to see the clear skies again, no matter how irritable his mood appeared.

30\. Punctual  
These days, Jean was always punctual when he arrived to work, which made him think something needed to change.

 

April rolled around, and one day after lunch he received a phone call.  
Coffee had never sounded so good to him.  
…

Sitting on one side of the small table cozily situated next to the window and far away from the chatter of the quaint coffee shop was Marco Bott, freshly released from the hospital and ready to reclaim his life. Across from him was Jean, a freshly stunned office worker. They sat in silence for a few minutes, Jean taking sips from his bitter black coffee now and then and Marco turning his cup of tea in his hands from time to time. They were quite the pair, just sitting there and staring.

“So, uh,” Jean broke the silence first with a gruff voice and awkwardly gestured to his face, “you’re looking better than when we last met.”  
Marco laughed, a soft, warm sound that intrigued Jean. “Thank you. Though I doubt it’s too hard to look better than I did then.”

“Yeah, uh…” Jean scratched the back of his neck and let his sentence trail off because, fuck, he just couldn’t think of anything to say to Marco.  
It wasn’t like he really knew him, but because they’d met under such strange circumstances, both weren’t exactly sure how to act around the other. What do you say to the man whose life you saved? Jean didn’t have the slightest clue.

Marco smiled at him and took a sip. “I guess I’ll just come out and say it. Jean Kirstein, thank you for saving my life.”

Jean grunted something incoherent. “It—was no problem. Anyone would’ve done it.”

Marco shook his head softly, and there it was again—that damn smile he kept on sporting, that looked a little too sad to be happy, and a little to relieved to be joyful. “You’re the reason I’m alive, and I’ll never be able to pay you back for that, but without you taking me from the wreck and giving me first aid, I would’ve died. I’m… indebted to you.”  
Jean nodded and covered his ears subtly with a hand. Marco’s praise was filled with enough gratitude to make the grumpy man blush.  
“Oh, and here’s your scarf back.”

He pulled Jean’s thick purple scarf out of his bag and handed it to him. There was a darkish stain covering most of it that made it look a whole shade darker, and Jean raised an eyebrow as he accepted it.  
“Blood stains are a little difficult to get out,” Marco replied sheepishly, “and there was a lot of blood.”

“Yeah, I remember.” Jean closed his eyes and tried not to remember the nightmares he’d had after saving Marco. The dreams where he didn’t save him.  
“Anyways,” Marco mumbled a bit awkwardly, and Jean noticed just how prominent his freckles looked on his cheeks (though why the fuck was he noticing that), “my mother made you a card too. Here.”

Another item came out of the bag Marco had been carrying and Jean nodded. They lapsed into silence as Jean read the charming letter from the mother who had nearly lost her son, and could not express how she felt after having him returned to her.  
“My father bought you a tie and some cuff links,” two more gifts appeared and Jean began to sense a pattern.

“You don’t owe me anything. It’s fine, really. I was happy to help.”

“Well…” Marco shifted in his seat, and handed Jean the rest of the gift bag. “We are so grateful for what you did, my family and I, that is, and we just wanted to give you some stuff to try and begin to repay you.”

Jean let out a casual laugh, took the bag and thanked him, causing Marco’s face to heat up a bit. “I’ll accept if you stop being so formal. Just relax, Bott.”  
“Erm, sure, Kirstein.”

Jean rolled his eyes. “And don’t force it, either,” he paused, and leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “I am curious though. What do you remember from the crash?”

Marco grinned, “I do have a vague memory of being told an embarrassing summer camp story.”  
Jean groaned.  
“And also you talking. That’s about it.”

“Of all things…” Jean mumbled, his mind flickering back to how he’d told that story, and then a couple months later Eren Jaeger had actually walked back into his life. Everyone around Jean seemed to know Eren and he was absolutely sick of it.  
Marco laughed and went on to elaborate, “I don’t remember seeing much, but your voice is very distinctive. I remember you kept on reassuring me and your voice would get a little bit deeper because…” 

He ended abruptly with a striking blush. Jean didn’t really understand the problem, but let it go.  
“How are your wounds?” He redirected the conversation.

“Oh, they’re healing nicely. My arm was broken and my knee was shattered, so I had surgery and a couple casts for a while. On bad days I have to use a cane, but otherwise, I was very lucky. I only have a scar left on my chest as a souvenir.”

Jean made a hmm sound. “That’s good. I mean, uh, not good about the scar but, you know.”  
Jean wasn’t really sure if he was coming off as a grumpy nit wit or just challenged.

“Yup.” Marco didn’t seem to mind, though, and smiled anyways.

And so, their conversation moved on to other, broader topics where Jean found out that Marco was twenty four, currently moving back into his apartment after staying with his parents for a while, and had started working as a real estate agent several months ago. Jean was slightly suspicious of hoe nice Marco was because fuck it, no one could be that nice, but the guy just kept chatting on about how everyone at his work was so kind and understanding. 

When the clock struck five Jean politely excused himself to get ready for work, but found he was reluctant to leave. Which wasn’t that weird because who wanted to go to work really? Except that Marco… There was just something different about him.

He filled the empty silence that pervaded every conversation Jean had, that quiet that hung in the air and even though he hated it he just couldn’t think of anything to say. But Marco knew what to say, and was actually pretty funny, with a quirky sense of humor just like Jean. 

Truth be told, Jean didn’t want to leave because he was having fun.

Which was all the more reason to leave. 

“Oh,” Marco replied when Jean got up. “It was very fun to talk to you, Jean.”

“Yeah, you too.” He let the sentence fall, and wondered if it would be too weird to ask for his number. It wasn’t for anything weird, he wasn’t gay, but Marco seemed like a cool guy and Jean wouldn’t mind getting to know him better. 

“I have your number, is it okay if I text you?” Marco asked as Jean put on his coat, a light blush on his cheeks.

Oh, yeah. He already has my number, Jean thought dumbly, and then realized Marco was waiting for a reply. “Uh, yeah, sure. Whenever you want.”

“Okay,” Marco said and Jean turned quickly on his heel and left. Something about Marco… he was really friendly, and something just clicked with him—like instant best friends.   
That’s all, Jean warned, because he wasn’t gay. No homo, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The NO HOMO thought is a prerequisite for Jeanmarco. I read that in the rule book.

**Author's Note:**

> Not really sure how long this is going to be. Maybe four chapters? I'm thinking four sounds like a good number. Hope you like Jean Marco because if you don't, I have no clue why you're here.


End file.
